A couple of weeks ago, one of my prolific music searches brought me to a strange corner of the internet that introduced me to film that was released in 2018 that somehow I had never heard of. Superficially, “Bathtubs Over Broadway” is a documentary about a comedy writer for “The Late Show with David Letterman” who, through his perpetual search for weird LPs to be used as gags on the show, unlocks a world previously unknown to him – that of the industrial musical.
Industrial musicals were commissioned by America’s great corporations, extolling the magnificence of their products, whether they be tractors, dog food, or bathroom appliances, to be performed as one-offs at national or even regional sales conventions as morale boosters for its employees – mainly hardworking salesmen with unglamorous jobs that often kept them away from the suburban, nuclear family-occupied, pastel homes they were supporting.
The money and talent lavished on these “shadow musicals” is staggering. The budgets eclipsed those of some of Broadway’s biggest hits. The actors and composers, a number of them future Tony winners, were all drawn from the same pool. Bob Fosse, Tommy Tune, Chita Rivera, Florence Henderson, Tony Randall, Bob Newhart, Hal Linden, Ed McMahon, Martin Short, and the creative forces behind “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Cabaret,” and “The Producers” all worked in industrial musicals. They were lavishly rewarded, I might add. And yet, very few people know of the existence of genre.
Even if you think you don’t find the subject matter appealing, the film works on multiple levels. It goes without saying that it’s a must for musical theater enthusiasts. But hardcore collectors will totally get the mania of “the quest” and smile knowingly at Steve Young’s encounters with the few quirky people in the world who happen to share the focus of his own particular insanity.
Furthermore, he makes it his mission to track down a number of the performers and creative artists who actually worked on these musicals. These encounters blossom into real-life friendships, lending the proceedings an unexpected warmth and even poignancy.
It also makes for fascinating social history. Like any artistic or pop cultural development, the industrial musical holds a mirror to and reflects the realities of the time – in this case, a lost America of the 1950s and ‘60s.
The entire film is an agreeable 90-minutes well-spent. And I must say, the out-of-left-field meta ending is absolutely perfect.
I caught it on Netflix a couple of weeks ago. You can watch the trailer here:
https://www.bathtubsoverbroadway.com/
“Life can be so rich and wonderful when we step off the logical path and embark on eccentric adventures.” Ain’t that the truth.